Guest Post: When Governments Go Rogue

There are those today who would claim that the lifeblood of a nation is dependent upon the graces of its government. That government is the focal point of cultural growth, and that we as citizens should respect it as such. I would be more inclined to agree if the public did not so easily confuse the ideals of leadership with the actions of criminals. That is to say, regardless of what we wish our government to be, bureaucracies rarely, if ever, embody the spirit of the common man (a necessity for any system that purports to defend the citizenry). Instead, bureaucracies almost inevitably deteriorate into vehicles for the perpetuation of tyranny driven by the very worst of all stewards; elitist minorities with delusions of godhood.

Unfortunately, despite this fact, the masses often treat these industrious vermin and the plagues of society that they build with the same reverence as they would a sincere and honorable body politic.

Government is not nor has it ever been a foregone conclusion. Government is not concrete. It is not tangible. It is not the foundation of society. Instead, government is an abstraction; a fantastic dream of collectivist paternity in the face of individual hardship. Those who fear to wander the world on their own courage, strength, and merit, seek to elevate and empower “decision makers” to provide the comfort of limited liability. Through this process, governments are created out of thin air. All governmental authority is, thus, HANDED to those in positions of leadership. What makes one man a “king” and another man a “peasant”? Only the people of a country, and where they choose to place their personal control; in their own hands, or the hands of others.

To put it simply, there is no power over us but that which we give away, and no freedom lost, that cannot be regained.

Until this reality is understood, consecutive generations of human beings will be left to wonder astonished at the endless atrocities of governments they thought they could trust. The truth is, no government, no matter how seemingly noble, deserves our full faith. All governments must be treated like storehouses of aging dynamite; with extreme vigilance, care, and suspicion, because, it is in the very nature of centralized power to sink towards destabilization and disaster.

The American dynamic was meant to be different. For the first time in history, a group of people organized an administrative body which was predicated upon the will of the general populace and not the will of the incorporated elite. The Constitution was the first legal document designed to LIMIT the power of government, not endlessly exonerate it. Though many in our modern age have become completely ignorant of its original intent, the Constitution and its written protections allowed for the first decentralized government of the Western world, if not the entire world. A government which was specifically tasked with shielding the rights of the individual beyond the desires of the mindless “majority”, or the normally influential aristocracy.

Obviously, we have strayed far and away beyond the schematics set forth by the founding fathers.

Let us finally be honest with ourselves and say it out loud; our government is not Constitutional! It has become a mutation. A monstrosity. A malformed creature given birth by the oozing genetic material of mad social scientists hell bent on dominating the building blocks of our political life. It is a thing to be abhorred, not admired, and certainly not to be trusted.

The statement above may be confusing to those who have relegated their concerns to the immediate. If one is free to walk about the streets, keep a job, have a drink, and settle in front of his television for hours on end, then what is there to be worried about? If he is not directly affected by the ill notions of men in far off banks and capitols, then why care at all? If the pain of government criminality only strikes people from “other” cultures, or other walks of life, why be concerned? For those who actually suffer from this brand of idiocy, I can only relate the unwarranted role that our government has assumed within our society and hope that they begin to realize how extraordinarily unsafe they really are. The injustices visited upon the few are invariably visited upon the many in time, especially where a rogue government resides.

The kind of intrusion by government allowed by the American people today is utterly astounding. Bank records, medical records, political viewpoints, phone conversations, emails, child rearing practices, food eating habits, health pursuits, social networking habits, biometric data, travel; nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government anymore.

At what point did we as a nation decide that the government’s opinion of the domestic ideal should become the precedent? At what point did we decide that a faceless bureaucracy knows better than we do what is best for us? When did our lives become an open book to be read at the government’s leisure?

I say “we decided”, because we must bear a large part of the blame. From the institution of the Patriot Acts, to the utilization of the FISA domestic spying bill, to the latest monitoring and cataloging by the DHS and the Federal Reserve of private internet activity, we have stood by and done little to nothing in response.

The argument put forth by establishment proponents has always been that the government’s task is to keep us safe. In order to do this, they say, there can be nowhere for “evil doers” to hide. Therefore, the privacy of every individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number. This argument is unabashed nonsense.

Governments do not keep people safe. Governments are historically predisposed to ending far more lives than they protect, especially when they have strayed from their original mandates. When a government goes rogue, or has been honed as a tool for control rather than defense, its directives lean towards self preservation, not the preservation of the public. That is to say, the government and those who directly benefit from its manipulation set policies that ensure their own safety, and no one else’s.

Without a doubt, all the anti-4th Amendment legislation that has been passed over the course of last decade is focused not on some sinister force, foreign or domestic. Instead, it has been focused on average American citizens, because, whether we want to admit it or not, the government sees US as their greatest enemy.

And most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act, a defense spending action which is being used to coattail legislation which decimates all Constitutional checks and balances and leaves the door open for the government to declare any region they wish a “combat zone”. These provisions are just a rewritten combination of the Enemy Belligerents Act (both bills were fostered by the hand of John McCain) and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, giving government free reign to designate any person, even an American citizen, as an enemy combatant. This means that anyone, including you, could one day be detained without Habeas Corpus, without fair trial, without due process, without legal representation, forever. Period.

You think rendition only occurs in Middle Eastern hellholes? Think again. With these bills and others like them, the American public is now fair game.

Rationalizations for the above actions abound. Some of the most common naïve positions include the following:1) Assassinations Against Al Qaeda Agents, Even If They Are American Citizens, Is Justifiable

The nature of the target is irrelevant to the principle underlying the situation. I don’t care if Anwar al-Awlaki was an agent of Hades, the conscience of a country must take precedence over the short term threats that country faces. If a society is unable to maintain its conscience and its principles in the face of hardship, then perhaps that society is not worthy of survival. There are, indeed, many more important things than national security.

This is how all tyranny begins; with a small group or element of a culture singled out for the loss of human rights, while the rest of the people look on and cheer. Eventually, the exception to the rule becomes the rule, and everyone suffers. Under no circumstances should our government be allowed to rewrite Constitutional protections or our moral compass, even if it means giving so called “terrorists” fair treatment under the law. Never forget, the term “terrorist” is as arbitrary as any nowadays, and could be used against you as easily as it could be used against anyone else.

2) The Domestic Realm Is A Haven For “Homegrown Terrorists”

Again, “homegrown terrorism” is a highly arbitrary label. If one looks at statements and white papers coming from the Department Of Homeland Security, or the Department Of Justice, anyone from Constitutionalists, to Ron Paul supporters, to militia members, to barter networkers and sound money proponents, or anyone who even expresses an interest in any of these subjects, is considered a potential domestic terrorist threat.

Where is this headed? Think about it. If these types of people are already being categorized as extremists, what’s to stop the government form categorizing them as enemy combatants?

3) Rendition And Torture Could Save Lives

Okay. Let’s say for the sake of argument that rendition and torture actually could save some lives, though I have never heard of any of these Jack Bauer moments taking place in the real world. Let’s say my life and those I love could be spared. Frankly, I would rather die than be a party to behavior as reprehensible as kidnapping and torture. I couldn’t care less about the theoretical benefits of the activity. As stated earlier, a nation hanging by the poisonous framework of moral relativism is doomed to failure and decay. Despite the propaganda often spread by elitist elements without our government, our military, and our local law enforcement, you DO NOT need to become the monster in order to defeat the monster. This lie should not be allowed to stand…

4) You Are “Overreacting” To The Legislation, And Americans Will Not Be Targeted

Senator Lindsay Graham, a backer of the National Defense Authorization Act, specifically outlined the bill’s jurisdiction over American citizens and even admitted it makes the U.S. itself a “combat zone” under the international laws of war (while at the same time presenting the lie that Federal due process would somehow be enforced for those who are captured). We who oppose the bill could do a lot more without being rightfully accused of “overreaction”. If Americans are not to be targeted, then why create the bill in the first place? Traditional laws of war would be more than sufficient to handle foreign threats, and domestic response agencies like the FBI could easily continue doing whatever it is they supposedly do to safeguard our country. The ONLY reason to introduce a bill which frees the U.S. Government and the DHS to act militarily within the borders of our own nation would be to target U.S. citizens, and to undermine normal Constitutional processes.

The legislation is self-incriminating. Only a complete dullard would argue otherwise.

5) The Government Is A Body Elected By The People, Therefore They Are One And The Same

The only practical explanation I can think of for someone to actually believe this argument is overmedication. Despite what we’re all taught in middle school, our government as it exists today and has for many decades does not represent the will of the people. Two dominant political parties with cosmetic differences in rhetoric but nearly identical legislative platforms and voting records is not an expression of a legitimately free republic. The system revolves around corporate ideologies of globalization, not elections. Its beneficiaries are a limited and powerful fringe of society, not the masses. It is a rigged game. A fake battle between two gladiators owned by the same Caesar. To say that the people and the government are one-in-the-same is a gross error in judgment.

After researching and acknowledging the course our government has taken, the question then arises; what is the ultimate end result? Barring multiple miracles of a complete economic turnaround, full third party inclusion in our political structure, the deconstruction of the Federal Reserve, the decentralization of financial influence, the reintroduction of Constitutional insulation degraded since 2001, and the complete pullback of troops involved in ongoing wars in the Middle East, there can be only one outcome: total conflict.

We did not create this division. The American people did not ask to be targeted. Though we certainly have not done enough to fend off the numerous attacks upon our general liberties, the root of the problem still lay within the core of our government, the puppet leaders who abuse it, and the corporate elitists who use it as a staging ground for personal agendas. We have become two separate groups that cannot and will not be reconciled. The government is openly admitting this through legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act. Its time we did the same.

When two forces diametrically opposed exist upon the same ground at the same time with the same force of will, war erupts. A war of philosophies, a war of dissent, and sometimes, a war of weapons. As unsettling as that might sound, we must take solace in the fact that we at least fight for what is honest. If every American must conform to the twisted path our government has chosen, or be branded an ‘enemy combatant”, then may we all become domestic threats in our own backyard.

i know a little bit about the government and let me just assuage some of your fears: the USG is so packed with human shit, that I'm not sure they're much of a threat to do anything but clumsily bomb people.

the gov goes out of its way to hire the weirdest motherfuckers around, diversity, retards, some seriously corked up people, like the type who couldn't get a job anywhere else, then it promotes them. Sooner or later, collapse of everything is inevitable.

It'll happen before things get too bad, IMO. It's already creaking under its own weight. Just take away the power of the purse and shit is OVER.

Yeah it is the same way with the post office. Most people have noticed more missing and mixed up mail in the last few years has dramatically increased.

We are slowly being turned into a third world with a suffocating, expensice bureaucracy. Pretty soon bribery and tax evasion will be the norm here just like in other backwards shitholes where no business can be accomolished through legal means, and only the most cynical and corrupt thrive.

We can live with the bottom third feeling alienated which is inevitable in a dynamic free society. We cant survive as a society when ninety percent lose faith and quit caring which is what happens in socialist-bureaucratic nations.

Trying to regulate all the ills of freedom by excessively regulating to level the playing field ends up harming even more people and introduces universal cynicism and malaise. Everyone goes Galt at the margin even if they dont know what going galt means.

Speaking of the post office, in my town of 90,000+, the kids here go to the post office and take all their express mail and priority mail forms and use the package stickers included with the duplicate form to write their stupid pseudonyms on them and stick them all over our street signs, traffic signal poles, signal boxes, telephone equipment boxes, store windows, etc., etc. I recently brought this to the attention of our local postmaster and he told me that D.C. hdqtrs won't allow him to put them behind the counter. They want the customers to have easy access for branding reasons. I wasn't sure what that meant. He then told me that UPS informed him that some of their customers were using USPS express mail boxes turned inside out so they could ship with UPS instead. I have scraped off more than 150 of these express mail stickers from public property thus far. If the kids are doing this in my town, it has got to be happening all over this country. Its no wonder they are going bankrupt. Take a look at the street signs in your community, if you see something stuck on there, well...

You actually spend time scraping off postal stickers from telephone poles and stuff? 150 of them?

And then you took the time to talk to the postal supervisor about it?

WTF?

Not to be rude, but you sorta remind me of a grumpy old dude who chases skateboarding kids around and angrily calls them "whippersnappers." If I was a kid in your town, I'd cover your house with postal stickers, and then talk to the postmaster about mailing your house to France.

I do it because I am the elected Alderman in my ward, and yes, you hit the nail on the head. I showed our police dept. gang unit officer some of these stickers and he told me that they most likely came from skateboarding kids or tagging crews. The gangs prefer spray painting their symbols on private property.

OK whitebread, you are obviously insulated from the problems faced by those of us who live in mid sized urban areas that have, over the years, experienced major demographic changes in the population. Living in the state of Illinois presents unique challenges to civil order because of many years of elected lawyers who craft our laws for their own benefit. Today, my state is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and all property owners are on the hook for past misdeeds. It is extremely difficult to manage a municipality in an environment where the work force is 90% unionized and their benefits are protected by our state constitution. Our median household income is 46,500. City employees average pay is 70,000. Civis Mundi, where is the fairness there? Have you ever experienced a drive by shooting across the street from your residence? Or a block away? Or a drug dealer that lives in your neighborhood? Or a rash of daytime breaking and entering in your neighborhood? I thought so.

Please tell me where you live, and I will come visit your community and deface all your public and private property. As you drive around your once pristine community and view my vandalism, what say you. I am figuring that you will remain anonymous within your comfortable abode and demand that your council member do something about this. That is my problem, the community sees nothing and knows nothing, just like you and civis mundi. If you two are males, you should be ashamed of yourselves. If you two have wives or girlfriends, I feel sorry for them. No, I fear for their safety.

"Please tell me where you live, and I will come visit your community and deface all your public and private property. "

CL17 - I followed your point of view until you capitchulated and became the thing you abhor in response to simple questioning by someone with a different POV.

This little example is a great comentary on human naure and a pefect example of the main point of the article. Government will tend naturally towards pursuit of more power and grow to become the antithesis of its original intent.

instead of knocking the $70k crew, why not find out why the $46k crew is stagnant. It seems this arguement always wants to bring down instead of raise the common avg. Punish the globalization gang that want you to race to match the wages of rice farmers in china - with trillions being thrown around willy nilly you would think $70k should be minimum wage by now

I've been called a legend and other nice things by nice people on this blog for my contributions, even for my incessant input into this blog day and night in the past, generally good feelings. I could add 3 pages to a thread here with just one sentence. You haven't seen this thread jacking master in true form in a while. Take a look at the reruns. Trust me, you don't want to see that again. Not so much these days as I generally like to use ZH for personal musings late into the evening when I'm not bothering too many people. Sometimes my musings appear in headlines and in news articles from time to time. Very flattering.

I saw this quote associated with Kyle Bass although I do not know if he is the origin:

"In financial crises, events can move from impossible to inevitable without ever passing through improbable."

I am convinced we can now remove the qualifier to that sentence.

When in the world did we have the split second to identify the problem with the devolving role of our govt and have the chance to reverse it? Is it possible now? Perhaps... perhaps not.

While we try, I'm acting as if my family and I are islands in the world and taking appropriate steps (PM, food, defense - I'm sure that just go me on to the Dept of Homeland Defense list as a teror!$t)

For those of you doing the same - I've noticed the tendency to take on a sour mood along with this preparation. I'm convinced that the MOST IMPORTANT activity is keeping a positive point of view.

if you are looking for a simple solution, you won't find it. The simple demise was the conversion of the american dream to the american coma. To awaken them you would need to show money flow like water and rain so they can see that their local communities are like dustbowls with no wealth at all. In the past, the locals would circulate their wealth and many would grow it as well. Now with globalization the wealth is in vast unseen basins and the trickle that flows briefly through the communities is like an IV for life support. That is the path you are preaching instead of waking up the body and getting it to stand on its own feet again.

Thank you dpos, As a local official I have no power over the macro economy. My focus is adjusting to our micro situation. All municipal employees have to understand this fact. I am just trying to maintain some equality between our high paid civil servants and our low paid taxpayers. I read zerohedge religiously and e-mail their articles to my colleagues so they understand what is coming down the road. Unfortunately, I am beginning to think that our finance director is the only person within the city employ that knows what is coming. My elected colleagues all seem to believe that the sunshine will return soon. We live in the state of Illinois, for crying out loud. I don't know what else I can do to wake up my colleagues. So, I just do what I can to make my ward as liveable as possible. Without the luxury of a conceal/carry permit. I would like to see how some of the members who poked me would respond to the problems I am asked to mediate on a daily basis.

take pictures of the walls of the abyss as you fall.. you might earn a Pulitzer or Peabody and dig yourself out

that's what happens when the large companies control all the wealth. There aren't enough people with wealth that give a damn about municpal services anymore. So they will die off, all of it. When the wealth was shared more, at least those people obtained some level of benefit from their taxes paying for the local government. With a small % holding onto the wealth, and perhaps hardly any of them living 1000 miles from your town, why would they care if all the wages drop and subsequently the tax base and thus the services?

I don't think you needed to use the word off in your first sentence. I can't quote the grammar rule, just a feeling from one with only a high school education, but I could call my sister(she's an english major) and ask her for you civis. I personally feel, it's just a hunch, that the action of scraping from implies total removal. But then again, who am I to question your authority?